Pictures

I am obsessed with pictures. I really am. I will never pass up an opportunity to take some pictures wherever I am. I have only had my computer for about 2 and a half years and I have over 3,000 pictures on it…just from college. Seriously, I love pictures.
The one thing I kind of miss about the times where digital cameras were non-existent was that you had to get your pictures developed if you wanted to see them. Now, people hardly ever develop pictures. They just upload them. I cannot tell you how many Kodak one-time use cameras I have spent money on. But that was the most exciting part for me, not knowing how your pictures turned out until you pick them up. I seriously would get so pumped up every time I got to pick up my pictures and look through them for the first time. What an exhilarating moment for me. Now that I have a digital camera, I know exactly what I’m getting the second I take it. I even have the option to take it over and over until I get the perfect snapshot, which is both good and bad. It’s hard to get really funny pictures like I used to because with digital, the screw-ups are always erased, whereas with disposable cameras, you don’t have that option.
What I love so much about pictures is that I get to visibly remember what happened in those moments. Pictures capture memories. They help you remember the good and bad times you’ve spent with your friends.

The most embarrassing moments you wish you could forget. And just things you never want to forget. I have at least 12 full photo albums stashed in the corner of my room behind my door. I have too many I don’t know what to do with them. But almost every single time I come home from school I look through them. I absolutely love remembering the high school football games and the really crazy things my closest friends and I did. I get to remember and see the blessedness of God is my past that I didn’t see then.
God is good. Go back through your photo albums and see for yourself. I worship a God that died for me to be happy. One that died for me to have a fulfilled life. A joyful life. But lately though I feel like I have lost my joy. No, not my happiness, but my joy. I have had a rough semester. No one will ever be able to truly understand just how hard it has been for me. I can’t even really express it. Words do not do the heart justice. I long for the days in some of my pictures when I didn’t have a care in the world I can remember just how joyful I was in the Lord. And not just with the Lord, but with everything in my life. Sometimes, pictures make me wish I were in another realm of my life.
I am about to leave for almost a month trip to Greece. Yeah, really awesome I know and I am so stoked you have no idea. I have wanted to go to Greece for a very long time now. My heart is in such a broken place and I am surrounded by so many things that cause me to stay in this state. I cannot wait to leave the country. Its like I feel like I am going to be able to escape from it all. I wish that would be the truth. We can’t escape our problems, especially our emotions. If you ever truly have, please let me know how you did it. But I know that you haven’t because God uses the emotions and events to completely revolutionize us. He won’t ever let me or you really escape from anything. I mean, I may be able to forget about a lot of things and leave stuff behind, but it is all here waiting for me when I get back. All anxiously waiting my return.
God is working. If there is one thing I have learned from eating my words of “Jesus bring the rain” is that God is so faithful to me when I can be so mean and stubborn back to Him. I wish I could see it right now though. I wish, through all the hurt, pain, and loneliness that I could see or be comforted by the outcome. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt everything is going to be ok. No, great. But it is one thing to know it, and yet another to actually believe it in your heart.
So all these pictures that take me back to a time of “remember when…” I really need to let go of. I need to let go of desiring to be at some other place in time and embrace my now. Easier said than done when you are in a rough situation, especially one that lasts for a ridiculous amount of time. The memories of the seconds I live right now are what God died for me to live out and enjoy. I have to take it all back to the cross. We all do. Our now’s that we are living are what Christ died for. Put that into your heart. Better yet, try and put that into a picture.